At the top of his class

FACTBOX

President Bush will honor a Prineville science teacher as
National Teacher of the Year at a White House ceremony
Wednesday, the first time in 35 years that an Oregon teacher
has won the national title.

Michael Geisen clinched the top-teacher prize for his record
of collaborating with fellow Crook County Middle School
teachers to raise achievement across the 700-student school.

Geisen's signature teaching style emphasizes inventive
lessons that keep students singing, moving and paying
attention. He insists that his students master rigorous
science -- but, just as importantly, that they exercise
their creativity, connect to other people and laugh a lot.

His seventh-graders know all about recessive genes and
photosynthesis, but he also teaches them inside jokes, corny
science songs and all the grossest science details any
12-year-old could hope for.

Geisen, 35, has ascended in the profession as quickly and
nimbly as he scales Smith Rock near Redmond, a favorite
weekend haunt.

Just nine years ago, he was a professional forester
who'd never considered teaching. But he was beginning
to realize that spending long days alone in the forest
gauging timber sales for a logging company "was sucking
the life out of me."

Reflecting back to forestry school at the University of
Washington, he knew his happiest days were spent as a
teaching assistant in UW's experimental forest, helping
undergraduates through monthslong stints in the woods. The
role was part camp counselor, part professor.

"I realized it hadn't necessarily been the forest
part of it that got me excited. It was the teaching,"
he says.

He was 26, with a wife and newborn daughter to support. It
wasn't the best time to head back to school to study
chemistry and physics at community college and then to
Southern Oregon University to get a master's in
teaching.

He barreled into his first teaching job at Crook County Middle, and seven years later, is loving every day on the job....